XII BLACK HOLES WORKSHOP

Guimarães 19-20^th December 2019

Gravitational-wave observations of coalescing binary systems allow for novel tests of the strong-field regime of gravity. Using data from the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center of the LIGO and Virgo detectors, in this talk I will report on the first constraints on an effective--field-theory based extension of General Relativity in which higher-order curvature terms are added to the Einstein-Hilbert action. I will describe how to construct gravitational-wave templates describing the quasi-circular, adiabatic inspiral phase of binary black holes in this modified theory of gravity. Then, after explaining how to properly take into account the region of validity of the effective field theory when performing tests of General Relativity, I show the results of a Bayesian model selection analysis using the two lowest-mass binary--black-hole events reported to date by LIGO and Virgo ---GW151226 and GW170608--- and show that one can constrain this theory with respect to General Relativity. In particular we find that these data can rule out the appearance of new physics on distance scales of 70-200 km.

Oral presentation: yes. Poster: no.